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Field Guides: Published and Planned

The first in a series of field guides, the Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of the Miombo Woodlands is a collaborative project between authors from Kew, and from the country concerned- in this case Zambia. Several more field guides are in preparation, and more are planned.

Now Kew’s Major African Flora projects are nearing completion, the logical next step is to make the information therein more easily accessible in a series of field guides. So far, two successful guides have been produced:

·        Smith & Allen: Field guide to the trees and shrubs of the miombo woodlands. Kew Publishing, 2004.

·        Demissew, Cribb & Rassmussen: Field guide to Ethiopian Orchids. Kew Publishing, 2004.

These guides provide a user-friendly platform focused on vegetation types (miombo) or taxonomic groups (orchids); another focus possibility is that of narrow geographical areas, say to the plants of a certain National Park.

An informal survey in 2003, consulting some twenty colleagues all over East Africa, showed that narrow-focus guides such as these are among the most common, and most popular, joint projects mentioned as wishes for future collaboration between Kew and its sister institutes.

Several field guides are in the pipeline:

·        Beentje & Bandeira: Field guide to the mangrove trees of Africa. Kew Publishing, in press. To appear in English and Portuguese versions.

·        Ranarivelo, Razafitsalama, Britt, Dransfield & Beentje: Field guide to the palms of Madagascar.  Kew Publishing, in advanced preparation. To appear in English and Malagasy versions.

·        Beentje, Badaza, Fagg & Barnes: Field guide to the Acacias of Uganda. Kew Publishing, in preparation.

Ideas for further field guides include: Acacias of Ethiopia (Sebsebe & Beentje) and Field guide to the trees of Mali (Beentje & colleague from Mali).

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